Questions linger in JonBenet confessor's story

[estranged4life]

Details in suspect's testimony, case raise doubts officials nabbed true killer

BOULDER, Colo. - If the stunning confession in JonBenet Ramsey's slaying has made the decade-old case any easier to solve, prosecutors aren't saying. And it may have made it more puzzling.

Hours after John Mark Karr told reporters in Thailand he was with JonBenet when she died, questions arose about his claims - including whether he sexually assaulted the 6-year-old beauty queen or was even in Colorado at the time of the slaying.

"It's clear to me that he's somewhat interested or maybe even obsessed by the case and the real question is whether he's inserting himself into it for some obscure psychological reason," said author Carlton Smith, who wrote 1997's "Death of a Little Princess: The Tragic Story of the Murder of JonBenet Ramsey."

District Attorney Mary Lacy refused to say whether authorities have evidence linking Karr to JonBenet's death at her Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996.

"We should all heed the poignant advice of John Ramsey," said Lacy, quoting the girl's father. "Do not jump to conclusions, do not rush to judgment, do not speculate. Let the justice system take its course."

Official backs off confession claims
Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul of the Thai immigration police changed some details Friday of the account he had given of what Karr told investigators. In a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Suwat quoted Karr as saying he had sexually assaulted the girl and given her drugs. He also told reporters before a news conference Thursday that Karr had claimed to have picked up JonBenet at her school.

On Friday, Suwat confirmed to the AP his account of the sexual assault. But asked Friday if Karr gave the girl drugs, Suwat said the suspect described the encounter with JonBenet Ramsey as "a blur."

"It may have been drugs, or it may have been something else because (Karr said) it was a blur, blur," Suwat said.

Suwat also said Friday that his statement about the girl being picked from school was based on a documentary he had seen and not the interrogation.

JonBenet's autopsy report found no evidence of drugs, saying her death was caused by strangulation after a beating that included a fractured skull. While it describes vaginal injuries, it makes no conclusions about whether she was raped. Investigators later concluded there was no semen on JonBenet's body.

Family, friends weigh in
Karr's ex-wife told TV reporters she cannot defend him, then insisted he was with her in Alabama during Christmas 1996, when JonBenet's battered body was found in the basement of her home.

And authorities have not said whether Karr could have written the detailed ransom note found in the Ramsey home, with its demand for $118,000 (the bonus that had recently been awarded to the girl's father, John Ramsey).

Karr's description of the case as an accident also rang false to experts.

"It's hard to imagine a more intentional, deliberate murder than hitting a little girl in the head so hard that she had almost a foot-long fracture in her skull and then deliberately fashioning a garrote to twist until it buries in her neck and slowly stops her breathing," said Silverman, the former Denver prosecutor. "This has always been a case of deliberate murder."

Lara Karr, who lived with him in Northern California, said her ex-husband spent a lot of time studying the cases of Ramsey and Polly Klaas, who was abducted from her Petaluma, Calif., home and slain in 1993.

Even the Colorado professor who swapped four years' worth of e-mails with Karr and brought him to the attention of prosecutors in May refused to characterize the suspect either as killer or kook.

"I don't know that he's guilty," said Michael Tracey, who teaches journalism at the University of Colorado. "Obviously, I went to the district attorney for a reason, but let him have his day in court and let JonBenet have her day in court and let's see how it plays out."

'Not what it seems to be'
Karr himself added to the mystery, telling The Associated Press in Bangkok that JonBenet's death was "not what it seems to be."

Asked what happened when JonBenet died, he said: "It would take several hours to describe that. It's a very involved series of events that would involve a lot of time. It's very painful for me to talk about it."

Karr's background includes an arrest in Petaluma in April 2001 on five misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography, to which he pleaded not guilty. He had not been seen by authorities after violating the terms of his release, which included avoiding child pornography and places where children congregate, such as schools, beaches and parks.

Any previous relationship between Karr and the Ramseys remained a mystery Thursday, though both have ties to suburban Atlanta. District Attorney Lacy refused to discuss the case during a brief news conference and suggested Karr's arrest may have been forced by concern over public safety and fears the suspect might flee.

"There are circumstances that exist in any case that mandate an arrest before an investigation is complete," Lacy said.

'He said they were lovers'
Karr, 41, was arrested at a Bangkok apartment Wednesday, a day after he began teaching second grade at an international school, Lacy said.

Hours later, Thai authorities sat him before a crowded room of news crews. Karr stunned reporters by admitting: "I was with JonBenet when she died. Her death was an accident."

"I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet," Karr told the AP.

Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand's immigration police, said a Thai officer asked Karr why he had sex with a 6-year-old girl.

"He said that at the time it was just a blur. He said they were lovers," Suwat told The Associated Press on Friday.

Suwat said Karr wants to return to the United States to fight the case. He said U.S. authorities were preparing documents and plane tickets for the return journey. The departure could take place at any time, he said.

Thai police said Karr told them the slaying was only second-degree murder. One expert suggested his confession was geared to spare him a first-degree murder charge.

"He seemed convinced that what he said would make him guilty of a lesser crime," said Sharon L. Davies, a former prosecutor at the Ohio State University law school who has studied confessions. "It's hard to understand how that would be the case and how the physical evidence that has been at least reported about her killing would support his description of this as an accident."

Legal experts said DNA evidence will likely be key: DNA was found beneath JonBenet's fingernails and inside her underwear and authorities have never said whether it matches anyone in an FBI database. U.S. and Thai officials did not directly answer a question at a news conference about whether there was DNA evidence connecting Karr to the crime.

Karr was given a mouth-swab DNA test in Bangkok, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The results of that test were not immediately known. Karr will be given another DNA test when he returns to the United States in the next several days, the official said.

'Serious questions' about the case
Karr will be taken within the week to Colorado, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault, Ann Hurst of the Department of Homeland Security told reporters in Bangkok.

Lin Wood, the Ramsey family's longtime attorney in Atlanta, said Karr went to great lengths to conceal his identity in e-mails to the university professor, going so far as to use a computer server in Canada.

Asked if authorities could tell whether Karr had firsthand knowledge of the murder or had just picked up information from news accounts, Wood said: "There is information about the murder that has never been publicly disclosed." He did not elaborate.

Karr's ex-wife was quoted by San Francisco television station KGO saying she was with her former husband in Alabama at the time of JonBenet's killing and she does not believe he was involved in the homicide.

Denver attorney Larry Pozner, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said there were "serious questions" about the case.

"I hope we have found the murderer of JonBenet, but I have not heard the evidence that compels that conclusion," he said.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[irishgrl]

well CRAP! I guess it was too much to hope for a clean case eh?:(

[Rickypt]

I thought something was off about all this. Some guy goes all the way to Thailand to escape a child pornography charge, but then confesses to murder? Then his "confession" was totally strange.

I thought someone posted on the other thread that his DNA matched that on JB's underwear.

Has the media once again jumped the gun?

[gldstwmn]

Here are some excerpts of the email exchanges between Karr and Professor Tracey:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4926302,00.html

It was the day before Christmas Eve 2005 when John Mark Karr sent an e-mail to University of Colorado professor Michael Tracey, seeking a strange favor.
He asked Tracey to visit JonBenet Ramsey's old house in Boulder and read aloud an ode he called JonBenet, My Love.

"JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you. I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness - this darkness that now separates us," it read, in part.

The e-mail was part of a small sample of the often lurid and disturbing correspondence between a person that investigators believe to be Karr and Tracey. The e-mails were obtained Thursday by the Rocky Mountain News from a source close to the investigation.

None includes any statements from Karr about his possible role in JonBenet's death. They do, however, include several interesting - and sometimes bizarre - exchanges between the two, including one in which Karr expresses concern that Tracey has obtained a photograph of him; another in which Karr said he was under federal investigation for "child murder and child molestation" in four states; and one in which the two traded views on the Peter Pan-related film Finding Neverland.

Karr was arrested in Thailand early Wednesday on a warrant naming him as the suspect in the unsolved murder of 6-year-old JonBenet in 1996. He is expected to be extradited to the United States next week.

In one of the e-mails obtained by the News, Karr brought up the legal travails of pop singer Michael Jackson, long under scrutiny for what seemed by his critics to be unusually close relationships with young boys.

"I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has," Karr wrote. He added that he, himself, "is trapped in a world that does not understand."

The News reported exclusively Wednesday that Tracey and Karr have swapped hundreds of e-mails during a four-year span, and that it was the content of those e-mails that gave rise to Tracey's suspicions about Karr's potential involvement in JonBenet's killing.

Tracey, in turn, passed his concerns on to investigators working the case privately. They, in turn, would later take it to prosecutors at the Boulder District Attorney's Office.

Tracey declined to comment on the e-mails obtained by the News Thursday, and a statement provided by a CU spokesman said Tracey would continue to decline interview requests "until he feels the time is right."

"Tracey said it is important now that people respect the judicial process and make no judgments about the guilt or innocence of the suspect until more information is available," the CU statement said.

It also said that Tracey wants to resume writing a book about the 10-year-old investigation and is planning to produce additional documentaries on the case, beyond the three he has already completed.

In a related development Thursday, the Daily Camera reported that Tracey shared details of his research into the Ramsey case with students months before he alerted authorities.

The paper reported former students as saying that someone sent Tracey a childhood picture of himself holding a white Santa Claus teddy bear and purportedly taken on a Christmas morning. The stuffed animal was apparently just like the one that mysteriously showed up in JonBenet's bedroom and stumped the family and investigators.

One of e-mails obtained by the News began with Karr chiding Tracey for failing to respond to an earlier message entitled, "Pretty Little Boy."

That e-mail included what appears to be a back-and-forth exchange - a passage from Tracey and an answer from Karr. However, it appears that Karr took a Tracey e-mail and then inserted his answers after each paragraph.

At one point, Tracey wrote to Karr, "I'm also curious as to why you feel that talking to me is dangerous and that you have shared too much."

Karr wrote back: "I was the subject of at lease (sic) a four-state federal investigation for child murder and child molestation. These people were not finished with me when I left the U.S. I cannot return. Since you have never been through something like this in your own life, you cannot know the paranoia it causes. You mentioned you have access to my photograph after talking to you for at least two years. I have reason to be concerned. Consider, if you will, post-traumatic stress."

A later e-mail included "Resend of Pretty Little Boy" in its subject line.

Again, it appeared to include a back-and-forth exchange.

"This is a letter that was sent on October 10th," Karr wrote. "I have found that you are easily overwhelmed and, when so, you seem to stop responding altogether. That being said, I am also responding to your last mail and will prepare a short message for JonBenet for Christmas night. Please check your mail each day prior to Christmas. Don't stop responding now."

Karr then wrote about his anger that a third person had provided Tracey with a photograph of him. "You NEVER said he HAD a photo of me," Karr wrote. "This changes everything. You have everything but my name and fingerprints. This comes as a major blow. Why did you not tell me this in the past?"

At another point, Karr responded to Tracey's challenge to follow through on his pledge to be "intense and thorough."

"Oh, Michael," Karr wrote, "I was referring to you - not me. I AM intense and thorough. I wanted you to be more intense and thorough in your responses to me. Your desire from me is that I cut to the chase and be specific about locations, names and all the other elements that journalist (sic) look for in a story. I am sorry that this is not the way I express myself about this matter."

Karr wrote later that his father was a "strong influence but rarely around," and then responded to Tracey's question about whether his "fascination with little girls - which clearly has a strong erotic component - is a way of going back."

"Maybe I am not going back but have simply stayed consistent," Karr wrote. "My peer group has not changed since I was a little boy, and girls were the people I was with always. Referring to them as a peer group is somewhat incorrect, but might also be the very definition of what they continue to be in my life."

At another point, Tracey wrote, "You told me once that your mother tended to raise you as a girl. This must have had a powerful effect on your developing sexuality - confusion maybe?"

Karr responded: "Michael, I will not discuss my sexuality as if it is a psychological disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In my case, I disagree with that totally, and if this is to be the way we progress in discussing it, I might as well stop while I am ahead.

"On the other hand, if you would like to learn something about my sexuality on an intellectual, nonjudgmental, nontraditional and nonpsychological way, I would love to share. It would help you understand a lot about my connection with JonBenet and possibly about the case. Shall we?"

Tracey also wrote to Karr about the movie Finding Neverland, which was about the author of Peter Pan.
"I can only say," Karr wrote, "that I can relate very well to children and the way they think and feel. I think you are asking if I am much a 'Peter Pan.' In many ways, the answer is yes. In other ways, I suppose it is no because I am trapped in a world that does not understand."

In his words

• Excerpts from e-mails written by John Mark Karr to University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey:

"I am tortured mostly because of my present situation. I appreciate that you would refer to my childhood. It was unique . . . "

"I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has. I do think that he is sexually attracted to certain children but could never divulge this. He made an attempt when he talked of sleeping with little boys but was completely misunderstood. I think he made an assertion and quickly had to back down. On the other hand, his comments might have had nothing to do with having the type of sex one might equate with the sense of the term, sex."

"Again, I was talking about you in reference to more intensity. The investigation was Federal. It involved four states. Knowing now that you have my photo, I am not keen on telling you of the specific states. I lost every friend, contact and family member as a result of this investigation. Some of my closest little girls were questioned by the authorities which broke my heart into pieces. I will never have contact with anyone in my past ever again. I lost my identity when this happened. This was the easy part. The worst was yet to come."

"I 'want' to tell you much though I cannot due to the fact that it has been revealed to me that you now know what I look like. This is a blow to our conversations and to my sharing. Had I known this earlier, I would have shared less - I am sure of it. With that said, I still responded to your mail in full . . .

"Sometimes little girls are closer to me than with their parents or any other person in their lives. When I refer to myself as JonBenet's Closest, maybe now you understand."

"I am interested in telling you anything that does not cost me everything as it did in the past."


Extradition policy

• The process for getting back an American citizen suspected of a crime, such as John Mark Karr, from a foreign country depends on the terms of the extradition treaty the United States has with it. "If we have a treaty with the country, it lays out the protocol in which you seek the return," said Bryan Sierra, spokesman for the Department of Justice.

• The United States does have an extradition treaty with Thailand, but it was not clear Thursday what the terms are.A formal request, either by the Department of Justice or the State Department, or sometimes both, would be made to the foreign country under the terms of the treaty.

• There had been no response Thursday to the Department of Justice's request to have Karr extradited. The decision on when the suspect is extradited is up to Thailand. "We're not the ones who have the control of the system," Sierra said.